I am obsessed with the Folies Bergère in Paris, circa 1890-1920. Located on Rue Richer in the 9th Arrondissement it was built as an opera house by the architect Plumeret and was patterned after the Alhambra music hall in London. What was the height of popular entertainemtn at the time and was the original “vegas” revue. The shows featured outrageously elaborate (and revealing) costumes, a good dose of almost-nudity, and played up the “exoticness” of persons and objects from other cultures, obliging the Parisian fascination with the négritude of the 1920s. This obsession led to the overnight sensationalism of Joséphine Baker in 1926 – an African-American expatriate singer, dancer, and entertainer, who made internaitonal headlines with her suggestive “banana dance”, in which she wore a skirt made of bananas and little else.
I’ve been collecting backstage photos of the performers at the Folies. Here are some of my favorites. Get the whole story »
I bought these rare vintage Hermes playing cards as “a gift” for my boyfriend recently. When I saw them I became obsessed and needed the perfect opportunity to get them into our living room. Get the whole story »
As all who know me can attest, one of my greatest pleasures in life is “making things pretty.” No other artist has had a career in “making pretty” that I both admire and envy more than Art Deco diety Erté.
To decorator junkies Erté (né Roman Petrovich Tyrtov) needs no introduction. The Russian born French artist, who went by the French pronunciation of his initials R.T, created some of the most recognizable theatrical and fashion imagery of the early 20th century and continues to influence fashion until this day.
Erté designed his first costume at at the age of five and moved to Paris as a young man to pursue fashion illustration. He soon got a twenty-two year appointment to Harper’s Bazaar and went on to create some of the most spectacular stage sets and costumes for Paris’ Folies-Bergère, the Paris Opera, and New York’s Zeigfield Follies.
Erté was a true early century renaissance man, excelling in all things visual, from drawing to sculpture, to costuming, to environmental design. During his fashion career alone, Erté produced over 250 covers for Bazaar, innumerable drawings for the magazine’s pages, and fashion designs for some of the world’s most glamorous women. Personally, I would give my left leg to have his complete Alphabet Suite of A-Z rendered in his trademark style.
Erté died in 1990 at the age of ninety-seven, ending an era of brilliance in theatrical design. Find books on Erté HERE.
No this is not a Parisian shoe salon. It’s Fauchon, a luxury food shop on Paris’ Place de la Madeleine in the 8e arrondissement.
Get the whole story »
My grandmother died an untimely death in 1947. She was, among other things, a loving mother of three beautiful children, a wonderful dancer, and the ethereally exquisite reigning Miss Central America.
Get the whole story »
Few women can captivate the attention of the world without television, the internet, or a spread in Playboy. Mistinguett (né Jeanne Bourgeois in 1875) managed to not only enthrall her home town of Paris, but went on to become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest paid female entertainer in the world, prompting an insurance policy to be taken out on her legs for an astounding 500,000 francs. Get the whole story »
Every man, woman, and child should have a Breton sweater. It is one of those things that always makes you look really hot and really cool and like you don’t care about how hot or cool you are.
The Breton shirt was officially created by the French government on March 27th, 1858. On that day a formal French act detailed the classic blue and white striped knitted shirt as part of the uniform of the French seaman. It was said that this stripe allowed the easy location of a man who had fallen into the sea.
The sailor sweater called “chandail” in French would find its origin in Brittany. It’s a contraction of “marchands d’ails” which is what French navigators traveling to England to sell garlic and onions were called in the 18th century. The sweater is always very close fitting and knit in a heavy wool with three buttons on the left shoulder.
A few years ago I scored two vintage versions of this sweater. For those with a little less luck, they are still made by France’s Armor Lux who has been putting them out since 1940. A few weird websites import them like THIS ONE.
Francoise Hardy. What a perfect creature.
The sixties chanteuse recently showed up in one of Matt’s late-night vintage video watching episodes and transfixed me.
Below is a clip of the hauntingly beautiful Mon Ami La Rose that focuses intensely on her caramel voice and gorgeous teeth for two entirely too short minutes. I just watched her twenty times in a row. I think this is the sound I want to hear every night before I fall asleep.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQGNpRnFNgM&hl=en&fs=1]
Last year on our first trip to Paris together Matt and I stayed in the spectacular Hotel Ritz on the Place Vêndome. Everything about the Ritz is incredible – from the spectacular suites named after the likes of Coco Chanel, Chopin, and Marcel Proust, to the Bar Hemingway where you can sip cocktails in the same room as James Joyce and Jean-Paul Sartre once did, to the perfectly rose-infued body lotion in the bathrooms (which I stole from the maid’s trolley), to the insignia emblazoned shoehorns and ashtrays (which Matt stole from our room.)
With more impressive footnotes and expensive chintz than you can poke a stick at, the Ritz is still NOT my favorite place in the world. In fact, I could not get out of there fast enough to make it over to 18 Rue Royale, where a simple mint green can become a lifelong obsession.
Ladurée, the legendary Parisian tea salon is more than a magnificent French pastry shop. Ladurée is to macaroons what what Philip Treacy is to hats, what Mary Quant was to color, what the Taj Majal is to mausoleums. I’m not exaggerating. For weeks I tried unsuccessfully to paint our bedroom the same color as Ladurée’s lovely little napkins, but I ruined Matt’s shorts and we ended up with a room better suited to Beth Israel’s ER ward. It’s white now. LADURÉE. Go there.
Hotel Ritz
LADURÉE.
